


lake michigan probably looks like the ocean

by wishtheworst



Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-15
Updated: 2018-03-15
Packaged: 2019-03-31 17:07:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13979685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wishtheworst/pseuds/wishtheworst
Summary: He used to get excited when Nathan talked about leaving home, but now he knows better. He doesn’t mean it.





	lake michigan probably looks like the ocean

They’re not the first teenagers to go up to the bluffs to make out, although Duke likes to imagine when they are there that they’re the only people left in Haven. Maybe left on Earth at all. It’s too cold for the thin jacket he’s wearing, and the April wind rips across the water and up the cliffs raw and ruthless. Nathan’s hand is like ice on his arm and Duke bites back the urge to tell him to put his hands in his pockets. He hates that kind of thing, hates the idea of anyone looking after him as if he can’t do it himself. 

“Chicago.”

Duke buries his nose in Nathan’s hair and pulls him tighter against his chest. He smells like home, soap and clean flannel, warm and constant. Duke feels like he could breathe nothing else for the rest of his life and survive just fine. 

“Why?” He doesn’t care, not really. He used to get excited when Nathan talked about leaving home, but now he knows better. He doesn’t mean it. When he says _let’s leave and not come back_ he really means _my dad is an asshole, I’m scared of things changing when we’re not kids anymore, I wish I could fix it for you, I want to kiss you in front of everybody_. Now Duke knows better. 

When Duke says it, he means he wants to leave and not come back. 

“Lake Michigan probably looks like the ocean. They have real winter.” He shifts a little, stretching out his legs and pushing one bony shoulder blade into Duke’s ribs. “There’s a giant Ferris wheel at Navy Pier.”

“You can’t decide to live somewhere because there’s a Ferris wheel.” 

“Then where?” 

“Nate, come on.” Some days it’s easier to let him imagine a life for the two of them that Duke knows isn’t going to happen. It’s easy to go along with it and think that this is the one time he’s serious when everything else is good. But sometimes Nathan is the only thing that is, and those are the times it seems obvious that Duke won’t get to keep that. 

Nathan tilts his face up to skim warm lips along Duke’s cheekbone and catch his mouth. “I’m serious. I’m ready.”

“I told you, when you’re ready, we’ll go. You want to be realistic for a minute?” It’s a dangerously thin line between calling him out and pissing him off, and that’s the last thing Duke wants. “You’re really telling me you want to leave town on a Tuesday? Just like that?”

“Why not?”

“Ok, fine. What’s the plan?” He tries to sound sincere, although he’s sure they can both tell he’s humoring Nathan. “Like we said? Wait until the Chief goes to work, you pack a bag and clean out the emergency fund…”

“And I come get you, yeah. Like we said.” He relaxes in Duke’s arms, a tension neither of them realized he carried until that moment. “I’ll use the key your mom hid under the mat and let myself in, and I’ll come wake you up. And we’ll be gone before anyone knows we’re missing.”

Duke wants to tell him that people who leave of their own free will aren’t missing. They’re just gone. Instead he smiles in spite of himself and says, “Ok. Tonight.”

It’s late when he hears Nathan fumbling with the lock on the front door, and he assumes his mother lost her key somewhere again. But instead of the sound of pounding on the door and yelling his name, all he hears is muffled cursing and the creak of rusty hinges. 

For just a second, Duke’s heart is in his throat. Nathan’s going to be so pissed he didn’t pack. He used to, every time. But unpacking that bag was misery, every single thing taken out heavy like lead in his hands. 

Nathan has to understand that. He can’t be angry, and if he is Duke will do whatever it takes to make it up to him: buy him breakfast as the sun comes up across the state line, do all the goofy tourist shit he wants to do in whatever city he settles on, let him pick the music for the first thousand miles, give him every minute of the rest of his life. 

He doesn’t really know why he pretends to be asleep. Maybe because it’s part of the way Nathan imagines this, and Duke wants it to be right for him. He can practically feel the weight of his eyes, and he squeezes his own shut in response like a kid trying to stay invisible to the monster in the closet. 

Then there’s a series of sounds that don’t add up – his door pushed shut, the quiet impact of a jacket hitting the floor and the groan of bedsprings as Nathan’s weight settles into the mattress and realigns as he lies down next to him. 

“I can’t,” he says, as if they didn’t both know. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s ok, don’t worry about it.” Duke turns toward him, propping himself up on one elbow so he can watch him. Nathan is perfect, even with disappointment in himself etched across his features, and Duke could watch him for hours. “Nothing to be sorry about.”

“Soon. Right?”

“Whenever you want, yeah.” He leans down to kiss him, and Nathan’s hand is just as cold on the back of his neck as it was that afternoon. “Whenever you’re ready.”

They never talk about why Nathan will never be ready, or what will happen when Duke finally is. It’s easier to hang on to this while he can.

What Nathan wants, he knows, is the promise of an escape and the certainty that it won’t ever be required of him. Nathan wants him to believe that he loves him enough to leave this behind. He wants to believe it himself. 

And no matter how many times it plays out exactly like this, Duke wants that too. Someday, when he leaves, he wants Nathan to remember all the times he loved him enough to stay one more time.


End file.
